Elizabeth McCracken is an American author of six books: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination, The Giant’s House, Here’s Your Hat What’s Your Hurry, Niagara Falls All Over Again, and Thunderstruck & Other Stories. She was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1966 and holds degrees in English from Boston University, an MFA from the University of Iowa, and an MS in Library Science from Drexel University. A former public librarian, she is now a faculty member at the University of Texas, Austin, and has received grants and awards from numerous organizations, including the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and the American Academy in Berlin. Her short stories collection, Thunderstruck & Other Stories, was nominated for the National Book Award in 2015 and won The Story Prize that year. Elizabeth is married to the novelist and illustrator Edward Carey with whom she has two children.